We're All Will Smith Now

Sonny vs. the National Post:

What the article fails to acknowledge is Smith’s talent as an actor; how is his persona any less acceptable than that of Bogart or Grant–similarly rote character actors who found super stardom while pulling the same act over and over again. Smith is a regular, pleasant guy who can pull off pretty much any role within the range of “kind of likable protagonist.” He’s not Daniel Day Lewis, or Gary Oldman.

Is trash cinema a problem? I mean, I guess. Great films are made every year: most of them simply don’t make a ton of money or star a huge star. Why crap on Will Smith because he’s successful?

A good question, and fair enough. But would Sonny — or would you — go so far as to argue that, because he is successful, nobody is really justified in complaining about him? Or is it his regular pleasantness, added to his success, that disentitles us to complain? Because the thrust of the anti-Smith argument (a phrase I hope never to use again, FYI) is that precisely his ability to cash in so hugely on his regular niceness — as opposed to his striking features, arresting vocal delivery, amazing acting chops, or whatever — opens up a legitimate ground for criticism. Or at least prevents us from having to celebrate all that is Will Smith. Will Smith doesn’t make trash films. He makes popcorn films, which — if you trust the market — are ‘worth’ even more than what he’s been paid for them. He’s just like us, or like the average reasonable American, at least onscreen. What nags is that he’s so much better at monetizing that average reasonable Americanness than we are. Why him? There are some good reasons, some not so good; some contingent and some pretty well fixed. I’m inclined to give him a pass, but not other people, and for similar reasons. And if it’s not possible to criticize Will Smith, it’s not possible to criticize those other people. And we can’t have that.